Briana Graham will present a workshop entitled, “All About Children’s Portraiture” on Tuesday, Sept 20 at 7pm. This workshop is sponsored by the Detroit Professional Photographer’s Association.

Brianna Graham is an internationally recognized portrait artist, specializing in children, families, and high school seniors. Besides the magic of her eye for light and color, Brianna also emphasizes the concept of balancing the art and business of photography.

For the past 4 years, Brianna has taught workshops across the country in Australia. She has been featured in Professional Photographer Magazine, Rangefinder, and has given presentations at WPPI and Imaging USA.

This event is free to DPPA members or first-time guests. NEW: Register for the 6pm dinner here.  Non-members may also attend for $45 by registering here.

Michael Timmons will teach you how to enhance your images on Monday, Sept. 26 from 10am until 4pm in the JD training center. The program is sponsored by the Professional Photographers of Michigan and JD Photo Imaging.

Ever wondered how to use Nik Software to enhance your images? How about taking your after capture skills to the next level? What about a work alternative to HDR that will give you a more photo realistic look using jpegs?

During this day long program, Michael will share with you all of his tips and tricks to create stunning, award winning images. This day will be devoted to exploring the Nik software interface and unleashing the power that lies within. Both color and black and white workflow will be discussed as well as image enhancement using Topaz Adjust and Lucis Art software.

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Lew Everling will talk about “Social Mediarology” on Monday, September 19th at 7pm. The program is sponsored by the Professional Photographers of Western Michigan.

Lew will take photographers through the basics of getting started in social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, email, texting and blogging.

In addition to being a passionate and energetic speaker, Lew is a member of the Professional Photographers of America, American Society of Photographers, Indianapolis Professional Photographers Guild, Professional Photographers of America, a Craftsmen Photographer, Certified Professional Photographer and serves on the Professional Photographic Certification Commission, a group of professionals promoting professional photography. You can see Lew’s work here.

For more information, visit the PPWM website.

Tim Priest will present “Shooting Seniors and Models with a Fashion Flair” on Monday, September 19th at 7pm in Frankenmuth, MI. The program is sponsored by Mid-Michigan Professional Photographers Association.

During the program Tim will cover lighting and posing for fashion style portraits. This includes:

• Mixing strobe, tungsten, and available light
• Location scouting and shooting
• Wardrobe
• Post production
• Using textures

Tim started as a commercial photographer, and has become a nationally known fashion shooter working out of Chicago and Grand Rapids. In 1987 he was named Michigan Photographer of the year.

For more information, visit the MMPPA website.

Kirk Russell will present “Not Even if You Beg“, the first of a series of online rallies to help motivate professional photographers energize their business on Monday, September 12, 2011 at 2pm. JD customers can click here to register.

The first rally is a FREE fat-trimmed, bare-bone, pull-no-punches webinar that will quickly explain why not enough people choose you and what you can do about it.

Says Kirk, “For most photographers, life would be great if they would just attract enough people from month-to-month, and year-to-year.”

This 20 minute webinar will quickly and directly explain:

1. Why people are more price sensitive
2. Why you don’t have to worry about the competition
3. Why you don’t have to lower prices to attract enough business
4. The best solutions to 1, 2, and 3

Last season’s series of Kirk Russell’s marketing webinars sponsored by JD were very popular. Customers can still watch them online today.

JD Photo Imaging and Kirk Russell will present a new series of online webinars this fall to help you supercharge your marketing. The first is scheduled for September 12, 2011.

We’ll have more details next week, but for now, make sure you save the date on your calendar.

Register for free online, then click the 3L Webinars button on top for access to our previous webinars and to be notified of upcoming dates.

Have you ever had an image that was cropped too tightly to print in two different formats? To help you out, Photoshop CS4 and CS5 have a tool called Content-Aware Scale.

Content-Aware Scale re-sizes an image by attempting to scale the background without changing the subject. While normal scaling affects all pixels uniformly when resizing an image, content-aware scaling mostly affects pixels in areas that don’t have important visual content. Using Content-Aware Scale, you can upscale or downscale images to improve a composition, fit a layout, or change the orientation.

In the example to the above, when I tried to apply a 5×7″ crop to the 8×10″ image, the crop lines were against the animal’s heads and feet. By using Content-Aware Scale instead, I was able to maintain a nice border around the image subject.

Here’s how I did it:

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Photography is a visual medium. That’s why it makes perfect sense to watch videos about photography instead of reading about it. Spending a few minutes learning a new technique or tip each day will help keep you on the cutting edge of your profession.

Below are 10 YouTube channels (think of them as weekly TV shows) I’ve reviewed and can recommend to photographers at all skill levels. Most of the videos are 2-10 minutes long, so they would be easy to watch in the morning with a cup of coffee or during breakfast.

Start by reviewing each channel below. If you find one you like, log into YouTube, click the “subscribe” button for that channel, and click “email each upload” so you’ll get an email reminder when a new video from that channel is uploaded.

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An all day workshop with Master Artist Kathy Falls

Class size is limited. Reservations must be made by May 30th!
Call JD Photo Imaging at 888-858-8084 today to guarantee your place.

Offered for the FIRST time you will have in in-depth, hands-on workshop that will teach you how to embellish your inkjet canvas and water color fine art pieces. Kathy will take you to the next level showing the latest techniques for creating ‘embellished giclees’ (enhancing your inkjet canvas image with painting techniques).   You will learn these  techniques using pastel paper, exotic papers, water color paper, and inkjet canvas.

This will be a hands-on learning experience using fine art products with painting and drawing applications. You will not be working with a computer, this will be painting directly on the finished image. Kathy will show you the appropriate materials to use for each substrate and how to finish them that will preserve the artwork and the image.

At the end of the day, you will take home two 11×14″ inkjet canvas and one watercolor image that will be artistically painted by you! Kathy will provide the images that you will embellish, a $115 value!

Kathy has utilized these techniques and has had her work in many galleries in Michigan and Indiana. Most recently Kathy was awarded “Best of Show” in the 2010 Hillsdale County annual juried art show for an embellished giclee, and one Loan Print in the Professional Photographers of America 2010 International Print Competition, which she created using these techniques.

Details:

The workshop will be held on Monday, June 6 from 9 am. to 4 pm.

Registration begins at 8:30 am. Please be on time.

Lunch is included.

Cost of the workshop is $120, and will be held at JD Photo Imaging in Flint, Mi.

All materials will be provided. Class size is limited.

Kathy Falls is a Master Photographer, Master Artist, Master Electronic Imaging, Photographic Craftsman, PPA Certified Photographer, Certified E.I., Certified Photographic Specialist

Thom Rouse, an internationally known artist, will hold a 3-day workshop entitled “Fine Art Portraiture in Celebration of the Feminine Image” May 15-17 at Hicks Studio of Fenton (map). Cost for the workshop is $425 for 3 full days, and is limited to 12 participants.

Thom combines photography and advanced Photoshop techniques to create his fine art portraiture. Here’s a tutorial he recently posted in Professional Photographer Magazine and an article on Shutterbug.com that gives you an idea of the techniques you’ll learn in his class.

According to Thom, on the first day photographers will work with live models using concepts for “dressing, lighting and posing that celebrates the feminine image.” Then, on days two and three photographers will learn how to apply different fine art enhancements using Photoshop layers. By the end of the third day, “photographers will have a full set of layered images as a reference for applying the techniques to other images.”

If you are looking for a new portraiture style – or to enhance your current style – you owe it to yourself or your graphics artist to take this class.  The ability to create and display images like these on your website and in your studio will help you to justify premium prices for all your portraiture.

For more information or to register for this class, contact Thom Rouse at (815)761-1358 or thom@thomrouse.com. To see more examples of his work visit his website www.thomrouse.com